Connect
Find others working on rainbow homelessness advocacy
Ending homelessness in Aotearoa, for takatāpui and rainbow communities and for everyone, is a bigger challenge than one person or organisation can meet alone. Making Space was built by Te Ngākau Kahukura and RainbowYOUTH as part of this wider kaupapa.
Ending rainbow homelessness needs all of us, working in different ways and connecting with each other. This page shares some of the organisations, researchers and community leaders who are part of this work.
RainbowYOUTH provides direct services for rainbow young people across Aotearoa. This includes a homelessness support service in Auckland that provides direct support for rainbow young people who are at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness.
Te Ngākau Kahukura advocates and educates to change services and systems so they are affirming, welcoming and non-discriminatory for takatāpui and rainbow people. This includes the housing and homelessness sector as well as related kaupapa including mental health, violence prevention, state care and other health and social sectors.
Gender Minorities Aotearoa provides housing advice and support for transgender people, including through their national Rainbow Housing NZ Facebook group, website information resources and online peer support. They advocate to improve transgender housing support and have undertaken research on transgender homelessness in Wellington.
The Rainbow Support Collective (a membership organisation made up of some of the key rainbow support organisations across Aotearoa) has rainbow housing and homelessness as one of its government advocacy priorities.
He Kāinga Oranga - Housing and Health Research Programme at the University of Otago undertakes research on rainbow homelessness (for example, their Tackling housing instability for LGBTIQ+ people in Aotearoa briefing)
Our Ministerial briefing paper (October 2022) talks about some of the wider system changes that are needed to address rainbow homelessness.
“The person who runs the house is a trans woman. It’s really awesome to know that people are going to go there and feel like there is someone who they can relate to. That makes a huge difference having a trans person working in housing.”